


i leave no fingerprints behind me (just an empty space)

by TardisIsTheOnlyWayToTravel



Category: Men in Black (Movies), Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Aliens, Crossover, MIB, Memory Loss, deneuralization, neuralization, retired MIB agents
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-06-29
Updated: 2013-06-29
Packaged: 2017-12-16 13:29:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,062
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/862553
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TardisIsTheOnlyWayToTravel/pseuds/TardisIsTheOnlyWayToTravel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This crazy life with Sherlock might be mad, but it feels oddly, comfortingly familiar.</p>
            </blockquote>





	i leave no fingerprints behind me (just an empty space)

**Author's Note:**

> Wrote this weird little thing in a notebook ages ago. There may - or may not - be additional chapters.

John spent ten years in the army before he was shot.

The three years he spent in Afghanistan are clear and vivid, burned indelibly into his memory, while the complete SNAFU that led to him getting shot (as well as the delirious, bloody painful period afterwards) is something he remembers far more clearly than he likes.

The seven years before that, though? Sometimes it feels about as substantial as a half-remembered dream. John’s therapist says it’s part of his PTSD, that the mind does funny things, sometimes.

Yeah, right. And the tremor in John’s hands is caused by trauma.

Mycroft’s right; John should really get a new therapist. He won’t, though, because everyone capable of deducing the reason for the tremor knows enough about him as it is. And John has a very, very strong feeling that whatever’s lurking in his subconscious isn’t something that should be disturbed.

* * *

John sometimes wonders why he feels so at home in Baker Street.

Anyone else – someone nice and sane, for example – would find Sherlock disturbing and upsetting and – well – a _freak_ , to use Donovan’s reprehensible description. Sherlock is like someone from another planet, a tall, weird alien with an improbably brilliant mind and muddled grasp of human customs.

For some reason, this feels familiar, comforting even. John has no idea how to deal with a normal person, self-consciously navigating small talk and other mundane social niceties with more difficulty than they deserve – but give him Sherlock, a mad chase around London and a bit of a brawl, and John’s happy as a lark. 

He tells himself he’s mad on a regular basis (usually when his deranged flatmate’s gone and done something unbelievable or obnoxious or both, again) and that all of this – the madness, the action, _Sherlock_ – shouldn’t feel exactly like _home._

It does, though, and John can’t shake the feeling he’s known a life rather like this, sometime before, which he’s somehow since forgotten. But that’s ridiculous.

Isn’t it?

* * *

John’s mostly forgotten the weird missing person’s case, where Sherlock tackled the bloke responsible to stop him getting away. John had ended up in a dumpster (he didn’t forgive Sherlock for three days for that one) and as a result didn’t pay that much attention to the details, too busy fuming.

Sometimes, though, late at night, one little detail comes back to niggle at him: a strange fragment of memory, free of any other association, of a panicked voice going _“what the fuck is that?!”_

Nothing else; no looking to see what was wrong, no shocking sight: just a voice saying in tones of utter horror, _“What the fuck is that?!”_

In his memory, the voice sounds just like Lestrade’s.

It makes no sense, though, so John tries to forget it. He just has this gut feeling that he ought to simply let the issue go.

Someday, that might even work.

* * *

John can name every visible star in the sky. It’s a trick that often impresses girlfriends.

When they ask how he knows, John just grins and says mysteriously, “I must have picked it up somewhere.”

The truth is, he doesn’t actually remember.

It’s not something he does more than once, though. Looking up at the stars for too long always leaves him feeling wistful and unsettled.

They’re beautiful, though, stars.

* * *

In the end, it’s Sherlock’s fault - of course it is. All John does is reach for the toaster, and the next minute he feels like he’s been punched in the chest. All the lights go out.

John spends the first few minutes sitting on the floor in a painful daze, not particularly aware of anything but the fact that it hurts and his thoughts are jumbled.

Slowly, memories start to trickle back, thick and cloggy as treacle. John doesn’t force them, just lets them run together like raindrops on a windowpane.

And then, everything just _clicks._

John gets unsteadily to his feet, and peers cautiously at the benchtop, where – now he’s looking for it – he sees a small pool of water.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” John sighs. “We had the chat about using towels just last week. Bloody cephalopoids. Always have to leave water trails everywhere.”

Still, John can’t bring himself to feel upset.

He find himself smiling as he glances out the window at the bright blue sky, and knows exactly what’s out there.

* * *

The next time they go running after a criminal, John somehow manages to stick doggedly to Sherlock’s heels. The suspect escapes them however, and Sherlock curses angrily.

He looks ready to go sprinting back to the crime scene, but John tells him to stand still for a moment and catch his breath.

“I’m fine,” Sherlock snaps.

“No, you’re not,” says John, because he was watching carefully. “You’re definitely out of breath. I know, I saw your gills.”

Sherlock whirls around to gape at him. The sideways eyelids – _gills_ – blink again.

John waits patiently, and tries not to feel amused at Sherlock being the one caught off-balance, for once.

“You _remember_.”

“Yeah,” agrees John. “Impromptu partial deneuralization via electrocution tends to do that. How many times have I asked you to dry off properly after your bath, before you use anything electrical? Like, you know: the toaster?”

“Ah,” says Sherlock. He does his best to look contrite, but the smile gives him away, a delighted twitch of the lips. “You have no idea how irritating it was to have deduced that you were ex-MIB and not be able to say anything.”

John grins back in spite of himself at his crazy alien flatmate.

“Well, you still can’t say anything,” he points out. “I don’t want to get neuralized again, because they found out the last time didn’t stick.”

“As though Mycroft would allow it,” Sherlock says dismissively. His hands hover in front of him, wavering vaguely towards John’s shoulders without actually making contact, like he wants to touch but knows he isn’t supposed to. In their native form cephalopoids are very touchy-feely with their tentacles; it must have been difficult for Sherlock and Mycroft, growing up, having it instilled in them that they can’t touch, if it carries over even when Sherlock looks human. “You’re a good influence on me.”

John reaches up to rest a hand on one of Sherlock’s shoulders, and Sherlock’s hands immediately come down to rest on John’s own shoulders.

“It goes both ways,” says John.


End file.
